Something is missing from Apple's UAE website promoting the iPhone 4, which is due to hit shelves in the country next week. It isn't the price, or details of the data plan or contract terms - those will be announced by the mobile operators Etisalat and du in the coming days. What is missing is any mention of the iPhone 4's star feature.
FaceTime, Apple's elegant new system for making high-quality video calls, is nowhere to be seen. Sites promoting the phone in markets such as Singapore or Australia feature the service prominently, often giving it top billing. While no reason has been given for the omission of mention of the iPhone 4's high-profile feature - at its launch, one Apple executive said it "would change the way we communicate forever" - it is worth noting that when users make a FaceTime video call, all the information is transmitted over the internet. Like Skype, FaceTime uses voice over internet protocol (VoIP), a system deemed illegal by UAE telecommunications law.
One well-placed source at a UAE telecoms company said, as far as he was aware, FaceTime would be included in iPhones sold locally. But whether the service is made available, Apple's decision not to promote it here reflects a looming challenge for regulators across the world and particularly in the UAE. An increasing number of technology platforms are including with their services the ability for device owners to speak to other users. Google recently integrated a Skype-style internet calling feature directly into its Gmail e-mail system. The UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) promptly announced it would block the service.
The technology website TechCrunch recently revealed a team of engineers at Facebook were developing a mobile phone operating system built around the company's social networking platform, used by more than 500 million people globally and half of all UAE internet users. Even in their ambiguous denial of the report, Facebook said it was working on "integrating deeply into existing platforms and operating systems". It is likely that before long the company will enable users to "phone" their Facebook friends directly from within the website - and not long before such a feature makes its way into Facebook's mobile offerings.
To apply policy evenly, the TRA would also need to ban this service. And with everyone from TV manufacturers to video games console makers and broadcasters looking to harness the power of their mass customer base through the internet and social networks, Facebook will not be the last. More businesses will try to connect their users and help them talk to each other through the internet. More fledgling services will probably be banned.
The convergence of multiple industries via the internet has left governments across the world scratching their heads and few regulators have managed to keep well and truly ahead of the curve. Are mobile data networks just like telephone lines? Is a website a publication just like a newspaper? Is your Facebook profile a website? Technology is moving and morphing faster than even the most fleet-footed government can keep up with, and few citizens anywhere consider government departments to be fast on their feet.
It is not surprising then that the TRA is still working out its approach to regulating services that transmit voice through the internet. But the current approach of banning services first and fine-tuning the policy later could hold back the adoption of extremely useful innovations. Remember Twitter, now used by the Abu Dhabi police force and a growing army of residents, was also banned in the UAE until 2008.
While the policy debate in the UAE centres on whether such services should be legal to use, a deeper and more complex question is being asked on a global level. As Apple, Facebook, Google and their myriad of similar companies attempt to turn vast user bases into tightly integrated communities, what is best for the consumer? For Apple, services such as FaceTime are an early step in turning the handset maker, not the mobile network, into the conduit of telecommunications. The company recently launched Ping, a social network for users of its iTunes music store that connects all iPhone owners via a new social network based on its own software and hardware.
Facebook, in turn, is trying to deeply integrate its own social network into the core of mobile phone operating systems, slowly turning users' Facebook friends lists into phone books. Google is putting its internet phone software into its web e-mail, its web e-mail into its mobile phones and its search engine into everything it can get its hands on, including TV sets and tablet computers. Each of these companies, to a greater or lesser extent, wants to lock its users into more and more in-house services and build barriers to keep competing services at bay. Apple has yet to approve Google's internet phone software for the iPhone and Facebook's integration with Apple's Ping network was quickly withdrawn after launch. New Apple computers come with a web browser that allows users, with a click of a button, to view websites stripped of all online advertisements, the bread and butter of Google's business.
With each company in full land-grab mode, consumers are experiencing an intense burst of innovation and competition. But they are also being shepherded into an increasingly walled-off series of digital playgrounds that are reluctant to acknowledge each other's existence. Finding a legal and regulatory balance that keeps this unprecedented innovation alive but restrains anti-competitive instincts is of great importance to the public.
It is hard for consumers, businesses, policymakers and leaders in the UAE to engage in this debate when much of the subject matter - the services themselves and their functionalities - remain off limits, restricted from public use. The UAE has sidestepped the culture of Skype - whose 530 million global subscribers outnumber those of Facebook - and web users in the emirate have largely learnt to live without it. But will the same be true for FaceTime, for Google Voice, for a future Facebook Phone, for the "Next Big Thing" that helps people chat over the internet while watching TV or driving to work?
tgara@thenational.ae